Spam on the Forum - Hi-Lo camper travel trailer forum

RichR · 08-20-2012, 10:31 AM

As many of you have seen we are getting an ever increasing amount of spam on the Forum. Every morning that I am available I check for spam, this morning there were close to twenty new threads, all spam from several different "new members". Although it is easy to delete and block those spammmers it is becoming quite frustrating.

I have sent two emails to the webmaster with my complaint in hopes that we can get filters into place to stop or at least greatly reduce the amount of spam that appears here. I am awaiting a response.

Have a great day!!

RichR

Jeff H · 08-20-2012, 11:42 AM

Thanks for the update and your efforts, Rich! It would sure be nice to get rid of these spam postings.

Jeff

DebW · 08-20-2012, 01:36 PM

Rich,
I was reading the forum very early this morning and the spam just kept rolling in one right after another. I reported 6 of them and then decided to quit reporting them. I wasn't sure what the heck was going on. Thought maybe the forum had been hacked or had a virus so I just quit reading. Hopefully you'll get a response soon.

RichR · 08-20-2012, 04:32 PM

Every time the spam is reported I get an email. I didn't get to pull up the Forum yet this morning and saw that I had some work to do. One good thing is that I can delete and permanently ban a single spammer and all his/her threads in batch form. I'm always afraid that I am going to delete and ban one of our good members by mistake. I have yet to understand what thrill somebody gets from spamming.

boater454 · 08-20-2012, 05:57 PM

I haven't seen all the spam but the one I did see was advertisements. So they just try to get as many people to click on their ads as possible. I know other forums I belong to require a moderator to approve new members. Sometimes this takes a few days. Could you send a prospective new member an e-mail asking what model camper they have before you approve them? Most spammers won't even bother to reply. You might be able to filter out some that way.

RichR · 08-20-2012, 06:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by boater454

I haven't seen all the spam but the one I did see was advertisements. So they just try to get as many people to click on their ads as possible. I know other forums I belong to require a moderator to approve new members. Sometimes this takes a few days. Could you send a prospective new member an e-mail asking what model camper they have before you approve them? Most spammers won't even bother to reply. You might be able to filter out some that way.

That would help a lot. I'm waiting to hear back from the website people to see what they have to say.

hilltool · 08-20-2012, 06:23 PM

Of course- that would exclude people interested in hi-los who don't have them yet....if we were overly strict about it.

Rick

boater454 · 08-20-2012, 10:17 PM

I think you could tell most the time by their reply if they are legit or not, even if they don't have a camper yet. Most spammers are illegible in their replies.

Jeff H · 08-21-2012, 07:22 AM

It looks like RichR will be busy again deleting all the SPAM postings from early this AM.

Jeff

RichR · 08-21-2012, 08:21 AM

I'm getting better at it. Now I know how to do it in batch form.

retiredcamper47 · 08-21-2012, 09:25 AM

RichR,

You are doing a fantastic job!

Bob

hilltool · 08-21-2012, 03:26 PM

Agreed. Thanks for the time and effort.